Operation Smile

One of the things I'm most commonly complimented on is my smile. It's great to hear, but also something I've taken for granted.  Smiling is something that comes easily for me and I was born with the ability to smile effortlessly.  This isn't true for everyone: that's where Operation Smile comes in.  Operation Smile is an organization who's medical mission is to deliver safe surgeries to those with cleft palates in places where access to surgery may not be available, frequently in the developing world. They combine the talent of medical volunteers from different countries with the best practices in surgical care to meet two goals: immediately transform the children they treat while creating self-sufficient, long-term solutions. 

 Operation Smile transforms the smiles, and not to mention the lives, of children with cleft palates in as little as 45 minutes with the cost of $240.  Wow.  Their website states: "Our international medical missions consist of a team of credentialed medical professionals from around the world who travel to an Operation Smile partner country to treat children throughout a two-week period."

"On a typical international medical mission, 300-500 children receive full medical evaluations and 100-150 children are surgically treated. We also use the opportunity to train in-country medical professionals, based on the needs of their health care workers or the facility where the mission takes place.

Thanks to the generous support of our donors, we are able to conduct international medical missions each year in resource-poor countries that lack local specialized medical professionals. View our medical mission schedule."

In the midst of budgeting for the hottest new fall trends, think about donating to Operation Smile, your donation, big or small, could change one child's life forever.

* I was asked to share Operation Smile with you by Campus Book Rentals who has partnered with Operation Smile to donate over 1,000 life saving cleft palate surgeries this year to children in need.  So cool right?  Next time you need a text book for your undergrad or graduate level class, consider using  Campus Book Rentals and rent your books instead of shelling out the big bucks to buy them.